In a victory for Native American tribes, an appeals court ruled Thursday that states cannot use negotiations for a Native American casino to challenge the federal government's decisions to recognize a tribe and set aside land for it.

An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said states have to use a separate process to contest those decisions and have a window of six years to file their challenge.

The decision removes the uncertainty many tribes faced about their land status after a smaller 9th Circuit panel reached a different conclusion, said Joe Webster, a partner with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker who was closely watching the case.

"This is certainly an important decision for tribes," he said.

The ruling came in a fight between California and the Humboldt County-based Big Lagoon Rancheria over the tribe's plan for a Las Vegas-style casino.

The tribe accused the state in a lawsuit of failing to negotiate a casino deal in good faith, and largely won its case in federal district court. A call to the state attorney general's office for comment about Thursday's ruling wasn't immediately returned.

The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a conservative group seeking to end an investigation into possible illegal coordination between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's 2012 recall campaign and independent groups.

The justices on Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that said Wisconsin Club for Growth and its director, Eric O'Keefe, must resolve their claims in state courts.

No one has been charged as a result of the investigation which has sought documents and testimony about possible violation of state campaign finance laws.

The investigation is on hold while a separate legal challenge is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The club and O'Keefe argued that the investigation was a violation of their First Amendment rights and an attempt to criminalize political speech.

Panama's Electoral Tribunal has lifted former President Ricardo Martinelli's immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for authorities to investigate him for alleged corruption.

The lifting of Martinelli's immunity as a member of the Central American parliament had been requested by Panama's Supreme Court and frees it to proceed with his prosecution. The decision was made Tuesday and announced the following day.

The billionaire supermarket magnate faces accusations that he inflated contracts worth $45 million to purchase dehydrated food for a government social program.

Martinelli has denied the charges and says he is the target of persecution by his successor, Juan Carlos Varela. He has left the country and his whereabouts are unknown.

Martinelli governed Panama from 2009-2014, a period of high economic growth but also of corruption, his critics say.

Protesters who demonstrated inside the U.S. Supreme Court are facing the threat of a year in jail and stiff fines, a sign that prosecutors and the justices themselves are losing patience over the courtroom interruptions after the third protest in just over a year.

Five people arrested last week after voicing displeasure with court decisions that removed limits on political campaign contributions now face charges including one that carries a maximum jail term of a year and up to a $100,000 fine — a sharp escalation from the possible penalties sought after two earlier protests.

A leader of the group behind the protests would not rule out future demonstrations, despite what he called an effort to crack down on the courtroom disturbances. "We are not going to be silenced," said Kai Newkirk, whose group 99Rise opposes the influence of big money in elections.

While protests on the sidewalk outside the U.S. Supreme Court are common, until last year demonstrators had rarely broken the decorum of oral arguments inside the courtroom. In February 2014, however, Newkirk was removed from the courtroom after he stood and called on the court to overturn its 2010 Citizens United decision, which freed corporations and labor unions from some limits on campaign spending. It was the first protest to disrupt an argument session in more than seven years.

A federal appeals court panel has upheld the conviction of a New Hampshire woman found guilty of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide so she could obtain U.S. citizenship.

Beatrice Munyenyezi is serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2013.

One of her lawyers, David Ruoff, said Friday they are still mulling their options after the ruling by the three-judge panel, including whether to ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston for a rehearing by the full court. He said they have been unable to reach Munyenyezi, who is in a federal prison in Alabama, to tell her about the ruling.

Munyenyezi's appeal said the trial judge should not have allowed prosecutors to use her testimony before an international war crimes tribunal to show she had a propensity to lie. Her lawyers accused a prosecutor of making false assertions while cross-examining a defense witness and said there was insufficient evidence to convict her.

Munyenyezi also said her sentence was too harsh. But the appeals court rejected all those arguments Wednesday and said the case record makes for "a bone-chilling read."

Munyenyezi was convicted in February 2013 in the Concord, New Hampshire, federal courthouse where she had been granted U.S. citizenship a decade earlier. Her citizenship was stripped upon her conviction.

The jury found she lied about being affiliated with a political party that orchestrated much of the genocide. Witnesses say she helped patrol one of the notorious checkpoints at which those bearing a card identifying them as Tutsis were singled out for rape and murder.

Italy's highest court overturned the murder conviction against Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Friday over the 2007 slaying of Knox's roommate, bringing to a definitive end the high-profile case that captivated trial-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Finished!" Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova exulted after the decision was read out late Friday. "It couldn't be better than this."

In a rare decision, the supreme Court of Cassation overturned last year's convictions by a Florence appeals court and declined to order another trial. The judges declared that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding that there wasn't enough evidence to convict.

In a statement issued from her home in Seattle, Knox said she was "relieved and grateful" for the decision.

"The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal," she said, thanking her supporters for believing in her.

Experts have said such a complete exoneration is unusual for the high court, which could have upheld the conviction or ordered a new trial as it did in 2011 when the case first came up to its review on appeal.

The justices' reasoning will be released within 90 days.

The decision ends the long legal battle waged by Knox and Italian co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito to clear their names in the death of British student Meredith Kercher, after they spent nearly four years in prison immediately after the murder.